Advertisement
Advertisement

USD students develop clean water to go

Share

In the aftermath of disaster, clean water is first on the list of necessities. So a group of University of San Diego engineering students are building a portable water purification system that can run on solar or human power.

The project will be on display at the university’s 24th annual Undergraduate Research Conference on Thursday, April 10.

The portable water purifier was proposed by five engineering students, who tailored it for use by relief agencies in events such as last year’s Philippine typhoon.

Advertisement

“Typically the disaster relief agencies are bringing up bottled water,” said David Malicky, an engineering professor who supervised the project. “This device can take brackish water and puts it through filters and reverse osmosis and an ultraviolet light filter to make it drinkable.”

The device can run off a solar panel in direct sunlight, or relief workers can use a treadle similar to that used in an elliptical machine to run the pump, he said.

Getting the pump to run in conjunction with the reverse osmosis filter was the greatest engineering challenge of the project, Malicky said.

Other student groups in the class designed projects including a motorized bike, a wheelchair lift system or a high-end computer cooling system, he said.

The research fair will also feature more than 200 other poster presentations, interactive exhibits and visual arts by undergraduates in the sciences, business and the arts. These range from an examination of the impact of economic uncertainty on today’s youth, to a study on Iraqi veterans returning to San Diego.

The event takes place from noon to 2:15 in the University Center, and is open to the public.

For more information about the projects go to https://www.sandiego.edu/ugresearch/urc/.

Advertisement